A Place of Inaction
This story is one of four in a series written as a projection of a world in which collecting emotion data is commonplace — or mandatory — and the disregard of the golden rules of designing for emotion.
It was a new year and he was going to make some changes. The last three years, as he looked back on them, didn’t exactly bring him to where he wanted to be. In the last session, he told his therapist, the one his mom made him get but now he kind of likes, that he was ready to start getting his life together.
“That’s good news,” his therapist said, looking doubtful but scribbling something on his notepad.
“Then I’ll suggest you download this as soon as you leave and get started.” He ripped off the piece of paper from the notebook and handed it to him.
“And I’ll be able to see all of your milestones and decisions you make too, so we’ll always be on the same page.”
He looked at the piece of paper and looked back up.
“You want me to download an app?”
“I know it will sound too good to be true, but I’ve seen many of my patients respond really well to using it. All you have to do is remember to track how you’re feeling each day. Eventually you’ll record enough data that you’ll get tips and tricks on how to get to your goals.”
He looked at his therapist skeptically. This guy’s not going to tell me anything I don’t already know about how these quantified-self health apps don’t work, he thought. Even just the ones you use for sport is annoying. Reminding you all the time how lazy you are.
“Just try it for a month — and if you hate it, we’ll go back to the century old traditional way of you sitting here and us just talking.”
He shrugged, “alright fine.” On his way out, his therapist called his name.
“Hey, like I said, most of my other patients find the app really helpful, but just remember: Not all patterns are meaningful.”
He left the office wondering how he hadn’t heard of this app before, if it was so good. In the last ten years chat bots had gotten better at not ordering the wrong sized pants or, when he moved, shipping his comic collection not to Lebanon, New Hampshire, but Lebanon THE COUNTRY. And sure, Apple ditched Siri for a version, Via, who wasn’t a total idiot and sounded a little more like an anthropoid. But these weren’t leaps and bounds toward automated life coaching.
But fuck it, he liked writing bad reviews online anyway. He got home, sat down and pulled out his phone.
-
After two months of tracking, the app gave him his first suggestion.
Maybe you should go a little bit easy at 16 Bit, you’re always hyped up and tense the next day.
16 Bit is a bar downtown that he goes once a week for a meet up group. He clicks through. Looks like he almost always records feeling riled up after these meetings. Seems like it’s carrying into the next day too.
Agitation, Aggression, Irritation, Frustration.
Well, this is no way to go on, he thought. I’ll give it one more shot, maybe now that I know, it’ll be better.
The next meet up started out pretty well. He got a beer and sat down. The conversation was about a controversial piece of legislation that was going to vote the next afternoon. He felt passionate about this topic and was eager to join the banter. After a few minutes he felt hot and started to feel the permanent furrow that had formed in his brow.
Oh no, he thought. This is how it happens. He’d been having a perfect week, Straight Happiness. Copacetic. Everything even keel. He wasn’t about to let this ruin it. He crushed the rest of beer and pushed his chair back.
“Hey, you just got here.”
“I…uh, I gotta go guys, sorry.” He put on his jacket and started for the door.
“What the fuck, man?”
-
After that he took every suggestion without much consideration.
Every time you see her, you experience sadness or pensiveness. Seems to throw you off your game for at least two days. She’s likely not the one.
Your childhood friend Mark seems to be holding you back. You tend to do the activities with him that aren’t aligned with your future goals. Is he really a good friend?
When things are going great, your job is the thing that pulls you down. Maybe you should polish up your resume.
Streamline was right. Every time he clicked “Add decision” a milestone and a reminder was created in the app. Whenever he was about to renege on a previous decision, Via would call him.
Don’t want to fall off the wagon, do you? You’ve been doing so well!
Each time, he’d hesitate but then remember his perfect score streak. 67 days. 93 days. 108 days and counting. He’d hang up and head back home. Home was pretty much always safe. He’d feng shui-ed his apartment (nothing like stubbing your toe to ruin your day), installed blockers on his browser (don’t want to be caught off guard), sound proofed his bedroom (he hated getting woken up in the night), and hired a number of people to do the menial work: cleaning, taking out the garbage, paying the rent — the list goes on.
In fact, now he had lists for everything.
He had a list of persons he should remain in some sort of contact with. He had a lists of places for each person. A list of where they could go together and a list of where they couldn’t.
He had a list of the optimal amount of time he should spend with that person. A list of who he could talk about with politics and with whom on films.
A list of what drinks he should have depending on the time and exactly how each one of them could change the course of the evening.
But that was just a beginning.
He had a list of activities that he would avoid at all costs. A list of types of clothing he should wear for a date.
A list of the types of food he shouldn’t eat, down to yeast extract. A list of nature walks that were good for pensiveness. A list of subjects he should engage in and a list of those he shouldn’t. A list of the content he could speak about on the phone and a list of what was better to just text. A list the amount of minutes he should spend on each machine at the gym.
A list of streets he shouldn’t walk on.
The application found disruption to his ability to be emotionally zen in just about everything. The old him would have been critical, the new him was dominated.
And boy had things changed. Sure he narrowed his friends group down, quite a lot. Actually it wasn’t really a “group” anymore, more like one other person. He even stopped going to see his therapist for a while. A sabbatical, he liked to call it. He was only supposed to go periodically for check ins, because the app shared basically everything. But he was feeling so good, why did he need to go at all?
He stopped saying yes to everything just to be nice. He stopped inviting people to his place. He knew it was better to only take the train on Tuesday and Friday, but to ride his bike every other day. He knew he should only read exactly 27 and a half pages of a book per day. If someone brought up hot topics like fossil fuels, opioid addiction, homelessness or equal pay, he should immediate excuse himself from the conversation and location.
Many of these lists he didn’t have to use after the first six months. In addition to his limited friends list and therapist visits, he had quit his job and deleted his social profiles and email account. He stayed inside these days and after reading his book, he mostly laid on the floor and practiced mindful meditation. At this point his apartment was empty of all furniture that he could possible impede his way. He could lay spread eagle in the middle of the room and not touch anything. He also got rid of anything that made a beep or bop noise. He still had his phone but one only application left. He check it obsessively. All blue. Same size, same form. The perfectly groomed visual quality of his emotion was sexy. And he was in love with it.
Hah. I bet everyone didn’t think I could do it, he said to himself, remembering the look of doubt on his therapist’s face. He smiled, tossed his phone on the carpet next to him and laid back down.
